I think it is ethical if the told the participants at some point in the study. It is a very effective commercial and backs up the point that people trust other users of a product over basic advertising.
I do think you are correct that this could have backfired on Ford if people felt "duped."
Sounds good. Where can I sign up for the free use of a brand new Ford for a week?
The market research industry seems to have something to say about this also.
http://www.research-live.com/new...r=y&
newsid=3809
Scott, Jim, and Ted, thanks for your comments on this! I found the link to the discussion on the market research blog especially illuminating so thanks for that Ted! Virginia Miracle over at Brains on Fire also blogged about this citing a 9/14 Wall Street Journal article about the ads. Viriginia's post can be found here: http://brainsonfire.com/blog/tra...swap-your-ride/
and here's the link to the online WSJ article (subscription required): http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB...2681227168.html
This is interesting, especially to hear about the reaction of the marketing research industry. A local Boston note; Merrill is a former President of the Boston chapter.
http://amaboston.org/html/
merril...rrilldubrow.htm
I was reading Larry Weber's new book, "Marketing to the social web," in the first chapter he describes a campaign run by Gillette to convince men that it is uncool to not shave otherwise women will be withholding sex, the campaign ran videos on YouTube, but there was no identification with Gillette. That sounds like another case a company going against the WOMMA guidelines.
Has anyone out there heard about WideCircles.com. It seems like a way better service then regular pay per click. Apparently they are using refering websites ( forums, blogs, wiki, etc. ) and have a viral word of mouth distributed approach to it which is engaging rather ther then interrupting customers. My friend told me he got over 500 visits from single post which cost him around $0.40c, within a few days. I am going to give them a try today . In case you are intrested here is it. http://widecircles.com?imt=3
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